


Seven Years Of Love

by ununoriginal



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Angst, Gen, One Shot, One of My Favorites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-16
Updated: 2009-12-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ununoriginal/pseuds/ununoriginal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life was always a little easier, when he was around. Heechul-centric, Kangchul friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Years Of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely inspired by 'Through The Trees' by Low Shoulder, and Rumi's 'The Taste of Morning'.

_2009 (September)_  
  
His finger slips as he tiredly fumbles for the fingerprint lock upon the door. The electronics beep and the door’s handle gives way to grant him access into the apartment. It is quiet – the lights in the living room are dimmed – as he toes off his shoes at the doorway. Granted, it’s already half an hour after midnight, but that’s never stopped his other housemates and people from the 11th floor from congregating here for gaming or late-night television or chatting/gossiping over soju and beer.  
  
Blearily he tries to recall where everyone else is supposed to be. Jungsu’s probably still on Sukira with Hyukjae, Donghee… he has no idea, Donghae and Hankyung he barely sees now that Suju-M have made their comeback.   
  
He’s cutting across the dining area towards his room when a sudden rustle from the living room couch makes him stumble in shock against the low table, jarring it heavily. The curses leave his mouth easily as he feels wetness seep across his sock-clad toes and the scent of beer wafts up towards him. He hears someone mumbling ‘hyung?’ as he hobbles towards the light switch and slaps it on, flooding the apartment with light.   
  
On the couch, Youngwoon is pushing himself up into sitting with some effort, all ashen skin and bloodshot eyes squinting painfully against the sudden brightness. Heechul stares in silence at the other man’s glazed features for a few moments before sighing in mock irritation. Peeling off his alcohol-soaked socks with mild disgust, he tosses it onto the puddle of beer and gives up the whole mess as a lost cause to be salvaged by the cleaning lady the next day.  
  
Barefoot, he enters his own room and unearths the extra blankets and pillow he doesn’t tell the others he keeps under his bed and spreads them out. Youngwoon is still on the couch, cross-legged with his head cradled in his hands, when Heechul comes out again.  
  
“Youngwoon, go sleep it off.”   
  
Normally he won’t say it like that, because he’s a democratic person who believes in the sanctity of freedom of choice, and also because battles have erupted between them before over such carelessly directive phrasing. It’s only times like these that he takes over, and Youngwoon becomes docile, lets Heechul grasp his wrist, pull him to his feet, and lead him into the room.  
  
*  
  
 _2003_  
  
The door to his room slams open and his ire rises momentarily until he sees the person crashing through. “Oh, it’s you.” He glances up at Youngwoon for a bare second and then lets his gaze drift back to the laptop where he is updating his minihompy.  
  
“Hyung! Is that all you’re going to say?!” Youngwoon sits down heavily next to him, and Heechul smells the faint tang of soju upon his breath. When Youngwoon’s head lands on his shoulder, he lets him rest it there.  
  
“I don’t believe in lost causes.”  
  
Even the most perfect face in the world isn’t going to change the fact that he doesn’t fit that particular bill. He can practice his dancing until his bones shatter and still never achieve the fluid grace that comes naturally to Yunho and Jaejoong. He knows he can sing, but in a way that is too raw for the sexy, smooth image required of the new group debuting within the next two months.   
  
Youngwoon slides down to the floor, his growl of frustration trailing off into resentful mumbling – he’d beat all comers in the talent competitions, he isn’t supposed to languish like this – and Heechul tunes him out.  
  
He moves his finger automatically over the touchpad, clicking on the links. His eyes run unthinkingly over the words on the screen while he lets the memories flood him – of grueling training and aching limbs; instant ramen on the grimy sidewalk, overturned tables for an extra piece of meat; the smiles, the anger, the laughter, the tears – until the pain they bring finally fades from a piercing throb to a faint dull ache.  
  
Youngwoon is still a warm, solid, passed-out presence against his back though, and Heechul decides, as he shifts to stretch out next to him, that for tonight at least, it’s good not to be alone.  
  
*  
  
 _2006_ _(June)_  
  
He’s still staring in astonishment at Hye Sun – his usually quick mind unable to process the information for once – when Siwon descends upon him in a flurry of limbs and he’s half spun around and released from the embrace as Siwon moves on to accost his next victim while he stumbles back against Kibum, only to be swept up in another hug.  
  
He and Hankyung are crushing the breath out of each other when he looks past Hankyung’s shoulder to meet Youngwoon’s reddened eyes blazing with triumph and elation, reflecting what he is absolutely certain is in his own gaze. The joy that courses through him is keen and exquisite and so exhilarating that he can feel his entire body shaking.  
  
Then Youngwoon is pulled around by Donghee and Jungsu gets shoved into him, nearly sobbing with the emotions overwhelming him.   
  
Heechul finally remembers to signal his fellow members to begin their thank-you’s, and under the blinding lights and glittering confetti, their declarations of gratitude and love have never sounded sweeter, have never felt more true.  
  
*  
  
 _2006_ _(August)_  
  
Pain is his only constant – pain and abject regret and Donghae’s pale, listless face dripping with neverending tears and Donghae’s voice saying ‘never feel pain or cry’ and how he’s sorry, so very very sorry, not that he sneaked out to Mokpo, but that he’s like this now, when everyone should be concentrating on grieving and praying for Donghae’s father’s passing.  
  
The only time his mind isn’t filled with this mass of despair was when they injected the general anaesthetic into his system and the nurse told him to count backward and he didn’t really listen but everything still spiralled into an empty darkness that was scarier than anything he’s ever experienced before.  
  
When he returns to the world of the conscious, he adamantly refuses to succumb to the sedatives and painkillers that would draw him once more into oblivion.   
  
He swings back and forth from wanting to focus on the pain to needing it to go away with a desire he’s never felt so fiercely for anything else before. His left leg throbs and burns and seems like it’s going burst with every beat of his pulse and he grasps frantically at anything that can pull his attention away from it – the iron taste of blood that had filled his mouth, the sharp-nagging soreness upon his tongue, flash-impressions of the whirring drill cutting through the wreckage, the screaming wrench of metal as his car door was pulled away.   
  
Strangers constantly appear by his bedside, polite, firm, impersonal, all intent on doing something upon his person, measuring, monitoring, evaluating, prodding and touching him virtually everywhere, even the places that should always remain inviolate.   
  
He’s laid open, flayed bare, and he denies himself the refuge of sleep – cannot and will not relinquish the last vestiges of his control to the ultimate indignity of being unaware.  
  
It takes him a while to recognise their voices when they are finally allowed to come to his bedside: at his left, Jungsu’s worried questions against the background of Hyukjae’s sniffling, Hankyung’s halting reassurances from the right. Someone’s sweeping his fringe away and tucking it behind his ear and only Siwon’s fingers can be that long and warm and gentle. Kibum and Youngwoon are standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed and suddenly Youngwoon blurts out something that he doesn’t really register but it can’t have been anything good since Kibum is digging his elbow into Youngwoon’s side and Hankyung follows it up with a shove.   
  
Youngwoon shrugs them off and subsides once again into chastened silence, but the look of chagrin upon his face makes Heechul think of a blessed day barely two months ago when he was also surrounded, with happiness and glee and carefree well-wishes.  
  
Gradually, the tension leaves his brow and for the first time since his accident, as his eyes are slipping shut, there’s a smile upon his face.  
  
*  
  
 _2007_  
  
They find him in Jungsu’s room, curled up on his side upon fitted white sheets, staring fixedly at the picture Jungsu has of the thirteen of them on top of the chest of drawers. He wishes he isn’t really here, but miles away before the doors of an operating theatre instead, so he will be the first to know that Jungsu and Kyuhyun are alright, but they aren’t being allowed near the hospital yet for fear of being mobbed.  
  
Vaguely he hears the door opening, followed by Donghae’s tentative ‘hyung?’ somewhere near the bed, but it just seems like too much effort to turn away from the photo he’s focusing on to even answer him. He ought to be reassuring, offer the younger members some comfort, be a pillar of support like Jungsu or sweet, sweet Hyukjae or Donghee with his solid presence, but he doesn’t know how. The words freeze on his tongue and his body locks before he can even reach out to hold someone’s hand.  
  
After a while, Donghae leaves and eventually reappears with Youngwoon, who settles down on the bed as well, pulling Heechul around so that Heechul’s head is resting upon his lap. The fingers of one of Heechul’s hands are laced together with Youngwoon’s, and Donghae is clutching onto the other from where he’s sitting on the floor.  
  
The bedroom door creaks open again and Jongwoon’s head pokes in cautiously. “We wanted to…” but Youngwoon is already waving him and a teary Ryeowook in, where they huddle down close to Donghae. Sungmin trails in shortly after, and when Siwon and Hankyung arrive, there’s a reshuffling so that Heechul ends up sandwiched between the two of them. Kibum is the last, leaning against the doorway, slightly apart, even now.   
  
“Hyung. Hyung, they’re going to be fine.” Youngwoon’s voice is firm and even, but the hand gripping Heechul’s is trembling ever so slightly.  
  
Heechul squeezes back as hard as he can. “Of course they’re going to be fine!” And in that instant, even though there’s absolutely nothing to rationally prove it, he believes it with all his heart.  
  
*  
  
 _2008_  
  
“Youngwoon-ah, let’s go visit Jungsu and Hyukjae – I feel like I haven’t seen them in a long time,” he says suddenly as the mini-van they're in travels down the night-time streets of Seoul.  
  
Youngwoon raises his head blearily, having half fallen asleep even within the ten minutes it’s taken them to drive away from the KBS building. “Hyung, the three of you live together.”  
  
“So? We’re all busy people,” Heechul replies off-handedly.  
  
Youngwoon gives a tiny scoff, but it’s enough to convey the magnitude of his disbelief. “It’s more like you were too busy killing imaginary monsters to come out when they’re home. Jungsu-hyung says you do nothing but stay in your room all day.”  
  
There’s technically nothing wrong with what Youngwoon has said – he’s supposed to be taking a break to concentrate on studying, but delaying impulse gratification has never been his strong suit, and if Youngwoon hadn’t barged into Heechul’s room earlier this evening and dragged Heechul out to guest on his radio show, Heechul would most likely still be there, glued to his laptop, battling his way through the bosses. Still, having people point out his shortcomings has never been something he takes well, even if it’s by Youngwoon.  
  
“Fine, whatever.” He turns away, folding his arms and looking out the van’s window. “I’m not the one with the over-packed schedule anymore.”  
  
From behind him, he hears Youngwoon swearing and getting up to whisper to their managers in the front.   
  
Five minutes later, he’s squished against the side of the van as Youngwoon crowds onto the seat next to him, his arm easily sliding around Heechul’s shoulders and pulling him close. “Yah, what are you doing? Let go of me!” His pride obligates him to put up some sort of fake struggle but he settles quickly, allowing Youngwoon to pet his hair while he rests his head on Youngwoon’s shoulder.  
  
“We’re heading to the MBC building. Happy now?”  
  
Heechul makes himself stifle his smirk of satisfaction and injects indifference into his tone. “Like I said, I’m not the one with the over-packed schedule anymore.”  
  
“Hyung!” Youngwoon’s hand slides down to squeeze Heechul’s shoulder. Then, a little more quietly, hesitantly, “Hyung, you’ll be done with your studying soon, right? I— Everyone misses the Kim Heechul in front of the cameras.”  
  
Heechul’s heart lurches slightly as he reaches up to ruffle Youngwoon’s hair. _Youngwoon-ah, you’re too good to a hyung like me._  
  
*  
  
 _2009 (January)_  
  
The entire showcase passes by in a blur – he’s never been so _involved_ in a performance before (a side-effect of not being the best singer or dancer in a group of thirteen is that there are surprisingly large swathes of blank time to while away during concerts). The moment the stage lights illuminated the band, every ounce of his attention has been locked on the drums, the rhythm and the beat.  
  
Even the screams from the audience are overwhelmed by the crash of the music and Jay’s powerful voice ringing out from the speakers. It’s only when everything is over and Jungsu and the other members enthusiastically crowd back into their dressing room, singing his and Youngwoon’s praises, that Heechul remembers having threatened them to stay till the end.  
  
His hands are still shaking and unbelievably sore and he can’t really clench them, but it’s just another pain to set aside and ignore until he’s curled up in bed much, much later. Right now, standing in front of the mirror ostensibly checking his hair, it’s just really hitting him that it’s the end of the show, the final episode filmed and wrapped, and after this, he won’t get to see Jay and Jungmo on a weekly basis anymore.   
  
Intellectually, he understands it’s likely because both of his shows are ending around the same time – he’s gone through it before at drama filmings or other variety shows he’s been on – but the knowledge doesn’t reduce the impact of the emptiness trickling into him. He wonders if it’s age, making him appreciate things more, or because this whole experience has been with really good friends.  
  
He’s distracted from his melancholy when someone grabs his hands roughly and he jerks away, shouting in shock at the pain zinging through his palms. “Youngwoon, what the fuck?!”  
  
Youngwoon pushes him into the chair next to the dresser, brandishing two skin-coloured plasters. “Donghee told me you got blisters from all the drum practice,” he says, grasping one of Heechul’s hands more gently this time, examining the angry redness marring the skin on his palms. Curiously, he pokes it. “Does it hurt badly?”  
  
“Ow!” Heechul automatically whacks Youngwoon with the back of his free hand, hard.   
  
“Okay, okay! I was just checking!”  
  
He watches the top of Youngwoon’s head as Youngwoon carefully applies the plasters on his hands.   
  
“We did good tonight, didn’t we?”  
  
He’s expecting Youngwoon’s comeback to be tinged with his customary arrogance, but Youngwoon is quiet.  
  
“Hey, what’s up with you?” He nudges Youngwoon’s cheek with his knuckles.  
  
Youngwoon’s eyes are a little wet when he raises his head to meet Heechul’s frowning gaze. “Yes, hyung, we really showed them.” And Heechul can’t get enough air into his lungs with the force of the hug Youngwoon is giving him.  
  
It’s likely he might suffocate soon, if Youngwoon doesn’t let go, but, Heechul thinks, for now, he’ll let Youngwoon hold on a little longer.  
  
*  
  
 _2009 (October)_  
  
He’s dozing fitfully, restless, when he seems to hear the muffled sounds of someone stumbling outside beyond his door. The apartment was unsurprisingly empty when he had come back earlier and it’s only belatedly occurring to him, as the door to his room opens, that Jungsu and Donghee mentioned pulling all-nighters and no one else should be home at this time .  
  
Before he can come to his senses, someone has crashed down heavily on the bed next to him, filthy with the reek of soju. Heechul doesn’t need the lights to know it’s Youngwoon – he’s had years to learn the shape and feel of Youngwoon’s body beside him.  
  
“Yah! What are you doing?!” He tries to shift back and give himself room to kick Youngwoon out of his bed but Youngwoon just burrows closer the more he moves away.  
  
And then he realizes with increasing uneasiness – Youngwoon is _clinging_. Youngwoon – Kangin – who always puts on the strongest front, who’s always more of a hyung than Heechul can ever be, is holding onto him for dear life.  
  
“Hey, what happened?” He runs a reassuring hand down Youngwoon’s back. But Youngwoon doesn’t reply, just continues clutching Heechul around the middle tightly enough that Heechul can sense the slight trembling in Youngwoon’s body.   
  
After a while, Youngwoon gradually relaxes into drunken unconsciousness, leaving Heechul wide awake and with no clear idea of what to do.  
  
It’s probably a couple of hours later when Youngwoon begins to rouse – despite the darkness, Heechul can hear the traffic slowly growing louder outside. Youngwoon shifts, loosening the near-chokehold he has on Heechul, and Heechul feels Youngwoon stiffen as he finally seems to comprehend where he is.  
  
He doesn’t say anything as Youngwoon rolls off the bed, just gets up and follows Youngwoon out to the living room.   
  
After Youngwoon’s done throwing up in the bathroom, they sit next to each other on the couch.   
  
“I fucked up, hyung.” Youngwoon’s voice is nothing but a raw whisper, and he’s staring determinedly at his hands.  
  
Heechul remains silent as the story slowly tumbles forth, the pauses longer than the actual sentences. He watches Youngwoon’s hands clenched into fists, the nails digging into his palms, and his heart aches and aches.  
  
The sky is already light outside when Heechul reaches out and tilts Youngwoon’s head up to face him. Youngwoon’s eyes are dry. It’s no longer the time for tears.  
  
His gaze remains fixed on the door long after Youngwoon’s left (Youngwoon’s manager arriving within minutes of him calling, to take Youngwoon back to the offices for immediate damage control).   
  
The apartment suddenly seems too vast and cold.  
  
Too many thoughts crowd his mind, and he flicks through them like the myriad channels on television – he should call Jungsu because Jungsu would know what to do; he shouldn’t call Jungsu because if Youngwoon wanted Jungsu to know, wouldn’t Youngwoon have called Jungsu himself?   
  
He remembers Youngwoon confronting him years ago, after his first appearance on X-man, hugging Heechul and declaring in the same breath that he was going to surpass him. He remembers all the shows they’ve ever been on together, the easy give-and-take of the banter between them, how Youngwoon would draw attention away, or direct others aside, instinctively knowing when Heechul needed the space. He remembers going on Yashimmannan with Youngwoon, watching Youngwoon shine bright, brash and confident, and feeling so, so proud.  
  
He keeps returning to the stage a month ago in Hong Kong, the crowd’s deafening cheers enfolding them, and wiping away the tears spilling down Youngwoon’s cheeks.  
  
He shivers a little and pulls his knees to his chest, curling up sideways on the couch.   
  
He wishes Jungsu and Donghee would come home soon.


End file.
